"Oh," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "there no-a da mon in-a da Italia and too-a much da hard work." So asking questions and listening to Tony's answers the three reached the house, where Bob quickly explained the matter to his aunt. She came out and asked Tony to stay and have dinner with them. He was given a basin and towel and after he had made his toilet his appearance was decidedly improved. "He says he doesn't want a job," remarked Joe Williams to his wife, when they were alone after dinner, "if he has to sleep in the barn." "Well, I don't blame him," said Bettie. "What's the matter with our south room? Your father and mother are moving to town to-morrow, and you know we won't have use for all the rooms in the house. The south room has a separate stairway leading from the small sitting room on the first floor. We could give him those rooms and make him comfortable. I rather like his appearance," she added. "Of course, Italians are foreigners and they're about as awkward in our country trying to speak our language as we would be if we were in their country trying to speak Italian. How much does he want to work for us?" "He didn't say, but I'll ask him," and they adjourned to the porch. "How much money would you want, Tony?" asked Joe Williams, "to work for us, say by the month?" "Where I-a da sleep?" asked Tony quickly. "In that room up there on the second floor, at the end of the porch." "And where I-a da eat?" he asked again. "Why, with us, of course," said Joe Williams. "Then I stay-a da mont and do-a da work, and when I get-a da through, we make-a da barg. If you like-a my work and I like-a da place, then I stay, but if you no-a like me and I no-a like you, then I go." "All right," laughed Joe Williams, "that's a bargain, Tony. Do you want to begin work right away?" "Yes, I no like-a da loaf," said the man, shrugging his shoulders. "All right, come around here and I'll show you what we want done," he said and took him around behind the house, showed him where to dig out and build a new entrance to the cellar under the washroom and put in a flue for the heater. Bob was much interested in the making of the trench for the new water system, and while his uncle went to town for the pipe and some pipe tools for laying it, Bob, at Brady's direction, plowed two deep furrows, six feet apart, outlining the two edges of the trench. He plowed each furrow a foot or more deep, so as to outline the edges of the trench and keep the top as narrow as possible. The contractor's foreman and his gang quickly drove their iron bars into the earth three feet six inches deep and about three feet apart and loaded the holes as they went. When they had fifty charges in place, the foreman connected up the battery, and when the men were out of the way he raised the rack bar of the battery to its full height and shoved it down hard. Up came the earth and a neat open trench four feet deep and one hundred and fifty feet long lay open before them.